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One upon a time, I knew this girl who was also a storyteller. I will call her Diotima. She had nut-dark brown eyes and a dark complexion. She had a slightly distant gaze which suggested she had a large inner world.

We strolled through the streets of our city every evening, and one day, she decided to tell me the story about the Trojan Love Machine. I was thrilled because I was a great fan of love-stories, although not an experienced practitioner of love myself, to say the least. 

*

I had to imagine The Trojan Love Machine as a large contraption standing on the main square in a famous city, she told me. This machine could think both in circles and in boxes, and gradually, it came to grow all by itself; flowers shot up on its back; it multiplied in thick greenish meaty plates on all sides, they arranged themselves in layers like wooden rings or meat fibers, and the machine became more and more alive.

At the front end of the machine, an exit gradually formed, where one could imagine that this monster horse would spit out truths about love. And at the back end, a small hole was visible, which eventually became a hatch that no one yet knew what use it might have. And it hummed immensely, Diotima told me.

*

The machine was the newest invention of a loveless people who were living in of famous city, not so far from here, Diotima explained to me. Any kind of natural love-making had been forbidden in this famous city for many years due to some kind of plague. It had been instated by law that no one was allowed to practice or even think about love. I meant, of course, that the loveless people occasionally felt frustrated, and they also felt a certain meaninglessness and alienation towards each other. However, the practice of making love was now forgotten, and many young people had never even heard of it, even though they might have a feeling of something trembling from time to time.

The people of the city had divided themselves into two opposing groups: men and women, who were not allowed to interfere, nor wished to either. But now this humming machine stood in the middle of the square and seemed very tempting. Maybe it had something to tell the people of the famous city?

Diotima stopped for a while and looked at me. I know she was looking for an excuse to keep on telling me the story while we walked the streets this night.

*

It all started, she continued, when an old woman from the old part of the city revealed that she knew the secret about love from her youth many years ago.

One day she told this secret to a young man from the neighbourhood, who then went out into the streets of the city where he proclaimed the message he had received from the old woman. Every single place he went, he said: “The truth of love is always to be found with the man and masculinity. Ask a man and you will know the nature of love.”

But a woman who came to him said she had heard somewhere else, from a man who believed he knew the nature of love, that the truth of love is always to be found with the woman and femininity.

Now, suddenly, the loveless people had woken from their loveless dream. They knew they were missing something. It was in these moments, the people of the city turned to the God of love, and said to him: Please, God come and help us in these difficult and tormenting times, “Tell us the true nature of love.” He listened to their outcry from the ceiling of a church, but he decided not to intervene.

Since the people of the city received no answer, they decided to build the love machine that could tell them the truth about love. But it was not easy because the women and the men could not agree on building the machine jointly, so they ended up building parts separately and then later combining them. The machine came to stand in the middle of the square of a famous city between the women’s group and the men’s group, right in the middle, so no one was prejudiced about it.

The calculation method of the machine would consist of only two elements, namely, a male component and a female component, which in turn had to be stretched to almost an infinite number of combinations. In this way, the machine would be able to devise the truth about love for both sides of the city.

There was a buzzing and humming about the machine, it resembled something that had to throw up everything it had inside. It also began to smell bad, as it rumbled out gases. Suddenly it gave up and freed itself from everything it had in its interior. There was a stench around it of unknown dirty secretions, and it was not easy to see anything in the cloud of truth-tinkering, Diotima assured me.

*

Yet the people were amazed by this growing beast, maybe it could be the answer to all their unfulfilled dreams. But first they had to make it speak, and to explain their situation and move the people of the city to unbelievable levels of consciousness. Maybe the humming machine on the middle of the square could be their savior and tell the truth about love?

Then finally the machine began to speak:
“A man and a woman have to lie inside me,” it said.
The people were pale with fear to learn that a man and a woman would have to lie together.

First, they rejected the straight order from the machine. But the machine insisted with its whole massiveness. The two groups talked together to find a suitable couple to climb into the back of the machine. There were not many who wanted to lie down in the smelly beast, and not at all with one from the other sex.

*

But the people of the city nevertheless found a young couple. She came from the sweet valley, and he came from a mountain plateau far away. The people thought the two of them could easily be lured to lie inside the machine.

They were so naïve and gullible, and they had even, so it was said, made eyes at each other. Of course, the two young people declined initially, but all the citizens of the city encouraged them, “Well, come on, do it for our sake—come on now.” And finally, they agreed to open the hatch and crawl into the back of the humming machine. Time passed—maybe a whole hour went by—and then they came out again.

And what sight the two crowds experienced. The young couple were totally absorbed in one another, which was against all rules and all morals of the city, and they were completely inseparable. They kissed each from top to bottom—and touched each other where it was not legal.

It was abominable for the rival groups to look at; a man and a woman should stay completely apart. But as time went on, the citizens of the city could see that the two were actually happy with each other, and then it didn’t take a long before there was another couple, this time not quite young anymore, who also wanted to try the machine, although they, of course, hated each other to the core, they assured all the people of the city.

This couple also came out of the machine changed, and infatuated with one another, so the people of the city had to call for law and order. However, the people of the city also wanted to learn. What happened in there? And soon there was a new couple ready to climb into the machine, and before long, a queue began to form behind the contraption. Now all the inhabitants of the city wanted to try a trip inside the big device. They stood in line while waiting for bliss.

*

From his holy ceiling, God followed the festivities and thought that now the people of the city were too much. For a moment, he went down to the earth among the people in the queue.

“Stop this now. Go home to yourselves,” he said.

And then he gave the machine a proper kick in the ass so that it fell apart. It almost sounded like the puncturing of dough. The machine went puff, and all the pleasures on the square stopped. The bliss had disappeared, but the people of the city felt strangely relieved and had now again discovered the true nature of love, Diotima told me.

*

I looked at Diotima, and she looked at me. By a strange coincidence, we were now standing on the main square of our city. And as it happened, a circus had arrived in the city, and we could now see that a gigantic, strange box, with plants and vegetation growing on all sides of it, had been installed in the middle of the great square. People were already standing in queue for the fun to happen. We looked at it, and without any hesitation, we walked away from the ticket booth, as if we knew what to expect.